CHAPTER X. 
FERNS AT HOME. 
AVe have seen how by very simple contrivances Ferns — 
almost alone of all plants in their adaptability for this 
purpose — can be made the most familiar of domesticated 
companions. AVe have seen how easily those who have the 
opportunity or can command the necessary expenditure, can 
create a Fern garden, of large or small extent, can have a 
Fern valley under glass, or a Fern house constructed upon a 
large or small scale, out of doors. We have seen, too, 
that those who have not the space for a Fern garden or for 
an out-of-door rockery, can at least have tiny Fern gardens 
in the house, in the shape of Ferns in pots. 
The open pot being the in-door representation of the 
. open garden, the glass case, or the glass-covered pot, 
is in the same way an indoor imitation of the glass 
house. And about the closed Fern case there is the same 
advantage — although on a smaller scale — possessed by the 
glass- covered Fern house. The most delicate, both of native 
and tropical Ferns, can be grown successfully in the closed 
case ; and for the reason that the artificial covering retains 
around the plant the equal degree of moisture, and the 
peculiar stillness of the atmosphere, which Nature provides 
in the home of the most delicate of the moisture-loving 
family — conditions which cannot be so well imitated in any 
other way. 
Here, then, is a source of pleasure and delight ! A little 
